NSW Information Commissioner sends email to wrong list

Do as I say, not do as I do

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The Information Commissioner in the Australian state of New South Wales, an officer whose job it is to offer and enforce best information management practice for the State, has apologised after sending an email to the wrong list.

The email in question advised of a conference at which the Commissioner, Deirdre O’Donnell, is due to speak.

But the mail, intended for members of the NSW Public Sector Right to Information/Privacy Practitioners Network, ended up elsewhere.

O'Donnell has issued an explanation and apology, to this effect:

Today you received an email addressed to members of the NSW Public Sector Right to Information/Privacy Practitioners Network.

This was incorrectly sent to you. I apologise for that. It occurred due to an administrative error in my office, which led to the unintended use of your email address.

The IPC maintains a general newsletter subscribers list and a separate list for the Public Sector Practitioners Group. The IPC newsletter subscriber list was provided to the Chair of the Practitioners Network instead of the Pracitioners' List.

I can confirm that the email went to undisclosed recipients, so no personal information has been disclosed amongst those recipients. Immediate action is being taken to have the data retrieved and destroyed.

The Register received both the mistakenly-sent email and the apology, and can confirm that the first message identified only the sender. It also linked to two documents, stored in Google Docs, related to the operation of the Privacy Practitioners Network. ®